Generally, when a heat engine, such as an internal combustion engine, generates power, it also generates high-temperature emission. Since this high-temperature emission contains high energy, energy can be obtained to increase the efficiency of the heat engine by properly utilizing the high-temperature emission.
Accordingly, there have been a number of studies on generators for obtaining electricity from the high-temperature emission, resulting in development of a generator employing a thermoelectric element.
However, the conventional thermoelectric generator primarily employs a heat-dissipating fin type cooling system and thus requires a heavy and big cooling system to create a temperature difference of the thermoelectric element, thereby having limited use. Especially, in the case where electricity is generated using vehicle exhaust gas, the conventional thermoelectric generator is too large and heavy to be installed in a vehicle, making it hardly practical for commercial use.
Moreover, the heat-dissipating fin type cooling system used in the conventional thermoelectric generator has a low generation efficiency problem because it cannot maintain the temperature difference required for power generation due to a limited cooling capacity.